Eva Moya: A social worker changes her commuity

Associate Professor of Social Work Eva Moya, Ph.D., recently achieved a great accomplishment in her career. She was elected president of the Association of Latina/Latino Social Work Educators (ALLSWE) in November 2018.

Over the course of her career, she has accumulated research on topics such as homelessness, sexual violence, tuberculosis and human papillomavirus.

One of her contributions to UTEP students is teaching a non-traditional practice by setting her classes at the Opportunity Center for the Homeless. Moya mentors students in pre-med and psychology for their theses, especially students who are passionate and interested in social work.

ALLSWE is a nonprofit association that is dedicated to network Latino or Latina educators of social work which allows members to network with other social worker educators around the globe.

“One of the beauties of the association is that we do a lot of our work bilingual so we can start in Spanish and then we transition into English, and then we come up with a sort of a Spanglish language,” Moya said. “We’re not shy about taking pride in what Latino cultures represent. On the contrary, we stand with great pride to embrace what the Latino social workers have contributed.”

As president-elect of the ALLSWE, Moya’s duties include serving as a spokesperson representing the association and reaching out to Latino and Latina teachers in the community and throughout the country.

As president-elect, her goal is to get 35 Latino and Latina social workers in practice from El Paso.

“I want to see an association that is vibrant, that is diverse, that has members from different backgrounds, and that speak the beautiful multiple languages,” Moya said.

One of the main goals of the organization is to raise funds to create a scholarship for those who wish to have an education in social work.

Moya said two Boston College of Social Work graduate students reached out to her during the winter break to learn more about the humanitarian crisis at U.S.-Mexico border. Both students, instead of staying home during the school break, decided to stay in El Paso and serve at the Centro Juan Diego, a hospitality home for refugees.

As a display of the love Moya holds for her community, Moya and her colleagues hold “The Hope Clinic” twice a year offering blood tests, stress assessment, HIV and hepatitis testing, and more, to the homeless people at Opportunity Center for the Homeless.